I went to see this movie at a late night screening on Saturday with a buddy. Unfortunately, the movie was being shown in a theater with comfortable lounge seats, so we had to pay extra. We both more or less knew what we were in for: A Transformers spin-off with great looking but mediocre actors, plot holes in abundance and the usual cheesy and temporarily corny American patriotism. But we thought: What the heck, if the action is spectacular, we might be able to forget about all that.
Ten minutes into the movie, we realized that we wouldn't. Taylor Kitsch playing Alex Hopper is so over the top the protagonist that has character flaws at the beginning and turns out to be the good, noble soldier at the end, that it hurts. The whole movie smells of NAVY propaganda from the start, with the proud but honestly strange looking veterans, the blatant display of battleships, clean white uniforms and blonde babes that fall for all that.
When the Taylor Kitsch character turns from former felon to highly respected naval officer, we knew we had to do something. In tacit agreement, we changed our perspective and started to think of this movie as a comedy and not an action movie. And, quite frankly, that did the trick for us.
We laughed, chuckled, giggled and kept rolling our eyes for the rest of the film. We laughed at the fact that technologically developed aliens could be annihilated by simply dazzling them with sunlight (if only they had worn better shades, strange that RAY BAN missed out on such a great product placement opportunity). We laughed when we saw Peter MacNicol (as Secretary of Defense) asking stupid questions about the nature of the attack so that the dumb viewers get what 's going on. We chuckled when we learned that the USS Missouri, a museum battleship, is still equipped with all its explosive weaponry. We giggled when the veterans came out of nowhere to go on their last mission (as if they had been living and waiting on the USS Missouri for 50 years) and we had to roll our eyes when Liam Neeson, whom I admired in Schindler's List and found great in Taken, lowered himself by acting out some dreadful scenes in a horribly flaccid film.
We left the movie theater laughing and waited to see if the movie goers who had obviously liked the film went to the cloakroom to pick up not only their jackets but their brains, too.
Bottom line: If you want to enjoy this movie, think of it as a comedy.
Ten minutes into the movie, we realized that we wouldn't. Taylor Kitsch playing Alex Hopper is so over the top the protagonist that has character flaws at the beginning and turns out to be the good, noble soldier at the end, that it hurts. The whole movie smells of NAVY propaganda from the start, with the proud but honestly strange looking veterans, the blatant display of battleships, clean white uniforms and blonde babes that fall for all that.
When the Taylor Kitsch character turns from former felon to highly respected naval officer, we knew we had to do something. In tacit agreement, we changed our perspective and started to think of this movie as a comedy and not an action movie. And, quite frankly, that did the trick for us.
We laughed, chuckled, giggled and kept rolling our eyes for the rest of the film. We laughed at the fact that technologically developed aliens could be annihilated by simply dazzling them with sunlight (if only they had worn better shades, strange that RAY BAN missed out on such a great product placement opportunity). We laughed when we saw Peter MacNicol (as Secretary of Defense) asking stupid questions about the nature of the attack so that the dumb viewers get what 's going on. We chuckled when we learned that the USS Missouri, a museum battleship, is still equipped with all its explosive weaponry. We giggled when the veterans came out of nowhere to go on their last mission (as if they had been living and waiting on the USS Missouri for 50 years) and we had to roll our eyes when Liam Neeson, whom I admired in Schindler's List and found great in Taken, lowered himself by acting out some dreadful scenes in a horribly flaccid film.
We left the movie theater laughing and waited to see if the movie goers who had obviously liked the film went to the cloakroom to pick up not only their jackets but their brains, too.
Bottom line: If you want to enjoy this movie, think of it as a comedy.